"02 - Sword Singer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

dark as a copper piece, dark brown hair bleached on top a streaky bronze, green
eyes couched in a fan of sun-baked creases that, when spread, display the color
I was at birth, thirty-some-odd years ago. Paler then, though darker still than
a Northerner's creamy color.
I am tall, broad, heavy, but considerably quicker than I look. Sword-dancing
teaches even the slowest man how to move--or it teaches him how to die.
I looked at Del, because Del is good to look at. But I also looked at the sword
hilt that rode her left shoulder. I know it well now. Better than I prefer,
because I had been forced to learn. All the months of watching Del wield it with
uncanny skill and grace, knowing it more than simply a sword, I had had time to
learn to respect it, even to fear it, because it was more than just a sword. In
her hands, it was alive, and a thing of awesome power.
Boreal: born of Northern banshee-storms, blooded in the body of one of the
finest sword-masters of the North. Her sword-master--her an-kaidin--a man she
honored and respected, who had taken a determined fifteen-year-old girl bent on
a highly personal revenge and honed her into a weapon nearly as lethal as the
one she'd eventually sheathed in him.
Boreal. Who had, in my hands (however briefly loaned) come to life at the sound
of her name, saving me, saving Del, destroying the man who meant to kill us.
But Boreal was Del's. I had no part of her. No more than I did of Theron's
blade, which now replaced Singlestroke even if only temporarily.
Necessity is often distasteful.
I sheathed the sword and ignored it, accustomed to its weight across my
shoulders. Then I took the stud's reins from Del's hand and led him a few steps
away.
"Look, old son," I began, "you and I have to come to an understanding. That sort
of blowup is acceptable when we're in a village or a town or an encampment and
there's money riding on the outcome, but not when it's just you and me and Del,
and that sandsick horse of hers." I patted his neck. "Understand? You could get
one of us hurt out here in the desert, and that's not such a good idea."
He blew noisily through brown nostrils and flicked a tufted ear. Then he bared
his teeth in a sideways attempt to bite.
"Affectionate as ever." I thumbed the prehensile lip and he twisted his head
away, rolling an eloquent eye.
Del caught up the reins of her own mount--a gutless, washed-out speckledy
gray-white gelding with a frazzled tail and the temperament of an aging woman
who considers herself still skilled at being coy--and looked at me. "How long
before we reach Harquhal?"
"Should be by nightfall." I shielded my eyes and squinted up at the Southron sky
that seemed to shimmer in the warmth. "Of course, we're losing time with this
idiot horse."
"Then saddle him and let's go."
"In a hurry, are we?" I took the stud back to where his gear lay and bent to
gather up the bits and pieces. "The North will still be there, Del... has been
for years."
She mounted, swinging free of her billowy white silk burnous one long leg and
slender foot with its Southron sandal cross-gartered to her knee, "And it's been
six since I was there."
"Not quite six," I corrected. "You've been with me, not counting respective
captivities, for at least nine months." I grinned as she shot me a scowl beneath